Sunday Roundup – The Republican Assault on Higher Education

Of course, Game of Thrones is a very problematic show, as I try to face directly in my writing. I also wrote a blog post on Liking Problematic Things then had some thoughts about the way that Trigger Warnings Are Your Friends (focused more on academia than TV/entertainment).

Finally, I had a brief post on Language and Power: Stop Saying Troll. Center the victim. Call people who abuse folks online … abusers.

——————-

But the most important pieces I read this week emerged from various writers focusing on the Republican attack on higher education in Wisconsin. Here are some links:

In the last few days, the GOP in WI have removed definitions of tenure from the statute, cute around 250 million in funding from UW, and change “subject to” to “subordinate to” as a piece of their plan to destroy shared governance. Even worse, if everything passes, WI will become the only state in the country to not require even a BA to become a teacher. I don’t really understand the kind of person who looks at the problems faced by WI and decides … What we need are teachers with less education! That’ll fix it.

Here are a few links. What are you reading?

• Chuck Ryback on the Final Struggle. A painful personal essay from a UW prof.
• Here are the actual changes in the Omnibus bill.
• Another prof hopes that this might spark a combined labor movement between tenure-track faculty and contingent faculty.
• And here’s my favorite – Bombs Away.

In short, Wisconsin Republicans have declared total war on public education. Both the K-12 bill and the UW bill were negotiated and written totally in secret by committee Republicans, with the details released to the public only hours before the final, fore-ordained votes were held. Moral and political commitments aside, this leaves one to wonder whether those legislators who are quickest to cite “market-based” considerations have even a basic understanding of what Wisconsin’s comparative advantage is. Wisconsin has a hard-earned and well-deserved reputation for its excellent public schools and universities. Without those, what is the point of living in Wisconsin as opposed to some other state? Set aside the fact that no UW campus will ever be able to recruit a top-tier scholar again. Why would anyone choose Wisconsin as a place to raise their family? Why would anyone in their right mind move to Wisconsin after this budget?

And let’s not forget North Carolina and Louisiana